The First Presidential Inauguration – Pieces of History

As we prepare for next week’s inaugural activities, we are looking back on our nation’s very first Presidential inauguration back in 1789.

After the U.S. Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788, the Confederation Congress passed a resolution providing that the states should choose Presidential electors on the first Wednesday in January of 1789. Congress also stipulated that the electors should choose a President on the first Wednesday in February, and the two Houses of Congress should assemble in New York City on the first Wednesday in March. 

Because Rhode Island and North Carolina had not yet ratified the Constitution, and New York failed to appoint electors in time, only 10 states cast ballots in our nation’s first Presidential election. The votes were sent to New York City to be tallied by the First Federal Congress when it convened.

The First Congress was supposed to meet on March 4, but because of bad weather and difficulties associated with 18th-century travel, Congress did not convene until April 6. One of the first orders of business was to count the electoral votes. 

Once tallied, the results showed George Washington was unanimously elected President of the United States with 69 votes. John Adams was the person with the next highest number of votes (34), so he became Vice President (this process was subsequently changed by the 12th Amendment). 

Congress sent Charles Thomson, long-time secretary of the Congress, to Mount Vernon to deliver the news to Washington. It took Thomson a week to make his way to Northern Virginia, and Washington learned of his election on April 14. 

On April 16, Washington left for New York City accompanied by his aide, Col. David Humphreys, and Thomson. The men traveled through the cities of Alexandria, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, Princeton, and New Brunswick before finally arriving in New York City on April 23. Upon arriving in New York City, Thomson wrote a report on his conversation with Washington upon his arrival at the Mount Vernon and a brief recounting of their eight-day journey to New York City.

In the meantime, Congress created a joint committee to plan the constitutionally mandated oath of office Washington was to take. They set April 30 as the date, and the oath was to be administered at the outer gallery adjoining the Senate Chamber in Federal Hall (formerly New York’s City Hall), where Congress was meeting. 

A little after noon on Inauguration Day, Washington rode alone in a state coach to Federal Hall. He was wearing an American-made brown wool suit. The fact that it was made in the United States symbolized a break from the country’s colonial past, but also by wearing a suit, not his military uniform, symbolized a shift from his role as General to his role as President. 

Before a crowd of spectators, Chancellor of New York Robert Livingston administered the oath of office prescribed by the Constitution, “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Although not required, after taking the oath of office Washington delivered an inaugural address—his first and the country’s first, which set the precedent for future Presidents. He started with:

“Among the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years—a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies.”

He went on to highlight the shared responsibility of the President and Congress to preserve “the sacred fire of liberty” and a republican form of government. He called upon Congress to pass a “bill of rights” to the Constitution as a written guarantee of personal liberties. He also asked Congress to appropriate for his salary as President only a sum needed to cover his expenses.

After he was finished speaking, his original message was stored with the records of the Senate, and it has been among the Senate’s holdings ever since. When the Senate transferred its records to the National Archives in 1937, it became part of the official Records of the U.S. Senate, now Record Group 46. 

The original message is in Washington’s handwriting. Originally, it was on two sheets of paper that were approximately 13 inches by 16 inches each, folded to make eight pages. At some time the document was folded in half crosswise and in half again, most likely for purposes of filing. The sheets were originally kept together with ribbon, which is evidenced by faded remnants on the first and last pages and holes in the margins of the pages where the ribbon was laced. The two pieces of paper have since been separated into four sheets. When it arrived at the National Archives, it was stored in a gold-tooled, silk-lined black morocco binding.

In 1952 the National Archives produced a facsimile of the eight-page document with explanatory text. It was available for 75 cents and often used in schools to teach history using primary documents.

Today George Washington’s first inaugural address is housed at the National Archives’ Center for Legislative Archives and is periodically put on special exhibit. You can see all pages, plus additional text, on our Milestone Documents webpage.

Learn more about Presidential Inaugurations: